For today’s #workhorsewednesday we are featuring the Armored vehicles that we have available in Iraq.

Armored SUV Rentals in Baghdad

The don’t draw much attention, and they prefer it that way. This pic won’t get many likes or shares, but these plain white Toyotas with 2000 lbs+ of added protection are a part of almost every modern Diplomatic Mission, Military, NGO, Peacekeeping Organization, Humanitarian Relief Group and Security Contractor working in hostile environments.

From our office in Baghdad, we can provide armored vehicles and executive protection services in Mosul, Erbil, Basra and Najaf. In Baghdad, we have armored Toyota Land Cruiser, Armored Toyota Hilux Pickups and Armored Chevrolet Silverado Pickup Truck’s available for rent.

Like this:

The 2019 Range Rover Sentinel Has Been Revealed Boasting All-Terrain Capability And The Ability To Withstand Bullets And Fragmentation Blasts.

Many years ago, I was given the chance to participate in a security driver training course with Land Rover, and that story is shared below, and part of that course saw me piloting an armoured Range Rover that was being delivered to some wealthy and paranoid owner. Now, there’s a new version of the Range Rover Sentinel.

But to story is the same, the thing is built to withstand bullets and fragmentation blasts and all the while look exactly like a garden variety Range Rover. It now runs Jaguar Land Rover’s 5.0-litre supercharged V8 petrol engine which allows the thing to get to 100km/h in just 10.4 seconds. And that’s staggering when you consider it’s carrying more than 1000kg in body armour and armoured glass.

Now totally tweaked in house at Land Rover Special Vehicles, the suspension, chassis, brakes and stability and traction control systems have been tweaked to handle the extra weight and the potentially demanding environment of a threat situation. Yet, all the while, the thing has to still drive like a Range Rover…it is, after all, an armoured limousine.

Comprehensive Car Insurance

GThe RR Sentinel gets strengthened wheels wrapped in run-flat tyres allowing it to continue driving at 80km/h for up to 50km if the tyres are damaged.

Further security systems includes the option for a specially configured front window which drops a maximum of 150mm for document delivery, while it also features a public address system allowing occupants to address people outside the vehicle without leaving their secure environment. Siren and emergency lighting packs are also available.

What I Learned Driving An Armoured Range Rover…

DEPENDING ON WHO you talk to driving a safe vehicle can mean different things. But, mostly, we’re told, a safe vehicle is one that carries either a five-star ANCAP or EuroNCAP rating. And fair enough, too.

But what about if you needed something that offered a little more protection than the ordinary five-star car, or if you were a celebrity, or a politician who lived in fear of being assassinated. Well, then you would need something like the vehicle you’re looking at right now.

Feel free to get out a magnifying glass and take a real close look at the pictures hereabouts and then tell me what you see… Nothing, right? And that’s the point.

I’ll bet you didn’t notice the bulletproof glass, or the heavy-duty wheels with run-flat tyres, or the tamper-proof exhaust, or… You see, this is an armoured Range Rover Sentinel. Sure, it’s an older model car, but that’s because I drove this one some time ago…

Because it’s a Range Rover you won’t find anything so crass as chequer-plate, slits for windows, gun ports, or a half-track under its bum.

“This isn’t a battlefield weapon,” Land Rover’s Armoured Vehicle Driver Trainer, Ian Halton, tells me as he walks around the armoured Range Rover pointing out all of the toughened bits of the car the Land Rover watchdogs won’t let me show you… for security reasons.

There are overlaps on all the doors, even on the rear boot lid, to ensure ‘splash’, or molten metal/shrapnel can’t penetrate door shuts or handles; the petrol tank is wrapped in armour; and the battery is stashed inside an armoured box in the boot; even the exhaust pipe is fitted with mesh to prevent tampering.

The body provides full 360-degree protection with ballistic and blast steel, and kevlar armour hidden beneath the Range Rover’s skin. Indeed, the outer skin is a facade only and so it can be stone-chipped, dented by a shopping trolley or even two-bobbed. “It’s designed not to be noticed, which is probably its greatest defensive asset,” says Halton. Only the plasma-cut, fixed-in-place, 40mm-thick toughened and heavily tinted glass is noticeable; and only then if you catch it in the right light and at the right angle.

So, to the untrained eye there’s absolutely nothing to suggest this car could step into the ring with two handfuls of hand grenades or an AK-47 and come out looking like anything other than a smoldering ruin. But it can. See, the Range Rover you see here has been armoured to within an inch of its life which is the not-so-technical speak for B6-plus. It’s a virtual bunker.

And to prove that point, Halton flips open his laptop, runs a film and starts narrating: “that rig next to the Land Rover Discovery (armoured to the same level as this Range Rover) holds 15kg of high explosive…” Then he’s silent… nothing… nothing… nothing… then KABOOOM!

It’s the sort of explosion you see in a Hollywood movie, or hear about on the news; the sort of explosion that would reduce four or five, or maybe even more, regular cars to black smears on the ground. Only when the smoke clears the Disco is anything but a smear. Sure, the glass is crazed, the bonnet has been blown off and is god-knows-where, the outer skin has been shredded, and the tyres look rooted, but it’s still standing.

“That car was able to be driven away from that explosion and the passengers would have survived,” Halton says as my jaw slaps into the table.

We’ve moved inside for the theory part of my driving instruction. Because, in case you’ve caught on to where this is going, yes, I’m being taught to drive like James Bond, or Jason Bourne, or… any other cool super-spy you can think of.

But before we get to the J-turns, Halton has to reduce me to a gibbering mess as he runs through a raft of examples where the security driver stuffed up and got their VIP killed. And the stories don’t all just come from the Middle East or the former Eastern bloc. Nope, he tells me sphincter-tightening tales from the height of the troubles in Northern Ireland, and even from kidnappings in Central London.

Once he’s told me his stories, he starts running various news grabs showing the car’s of VIPs being surrounded in protests just to emphasise that the things he’s talking about are real and happen right now. Today even…

The class I’m taking right now is the same class that everyone buying an armoured vehicle from Land Rover has to sit. And that’s only after your desire to buy one of these vehicles has been approved by the British Home Office, and plenty of punters, Halton says have been turned down, “for one reason or another”.

Once the vetting process has been finished, Land Rover appoints a dedicated security consultant to work with the customer to ensure the vehicle is built to meet their requirements. All vehicles are sold with a warranty, and driver training as part of the package; added extras are regular visits with a technician to ensure the vehicle is in tip-top condition. And, in case you’re wondering, not a single armoured Rangie or Disco has been sold in Australia…

Over the course of a few hours, Halton reminds me about the importance of constantly altering my route and of mapping out routes that offer escape routes. He also talks about running a dummy vehicle if the particular VIP is very important and has received threats… he also talks about not trying to attract attention to the VIP which is why, even if you stood next to one of these armoured Range Rovers you wouldn’t know it was anything out of the ordinary.

An few hours later, and with my head filled with stories of assassination attempts and kidnappings (there were 442 kidnappings in London alone, in 2005), and my note pad full of situational awareness, route selection and risk assessment techniques, I pick my jaw back up off the floor and am led out to the armoured Range Rover. Play time is about to begin.

Well, at least it will as soon as I can get the door open. So heavily armoured is this thing that it takes all of the strength I have just to pull open the doors. Once inside, and with my breath back, I kick over the armoured Range Rover. Three times…

See, with almost two tons of armour wrapped around the body you can’t hear a thing from inside the cabin. Indeed, you’ve got to use an intercom system, hidden in the cup holders, to talk and listen to people outside.

On the move, the armoured Range Rover rides and handles just like a, well, just like a Range Rover. And that’s all down to its 5.0-litre V8 thumping out 276kW and 510Nm and a Prodrive-tweaked chassis, air suspension, braking system and heavy-duty wheels. So, because it still behaves like a proper Range Rover, you can clamber up over gutters, down steps, or even push through walls if need be. Not that we got to do any of that.

Ian Halton is one of the world’s most experienced security driving experts.

“The Range Rover’s armour and all-road ability can mean the difference between life and death; but all it does is buy you a few vital seconds,” Halton says.

But, he adds, as strong as the armoured Range Rover is it all comes down to the driver: “most of our training revolves around familiarising the driver with the extra weight of the armoured Range Rover and how to handle that extra weight in a life-threatening situation.” Because, he adds, if you start getting ham-fisted with it, even a vehicle as capable as the Range Rover can be rolled.

And that’s why, right now, I’m driving a figure-of-eight around a very large, and very empty car park. “The key is to be firm but smooth, it’s when you panic and yank at the wheel with too much speed that you can tip it over and you don’t want that when you’re being shot at.” Um, no.

But the best technique for getting away from an ambush, and one of the hardest to master, he says, is the high-speed reverse. And that’s because you’ve got to master three different ways of doing it: either the wing mirrors only; the rear vision mirror only, or looking backwards over your shoulder. And all the while bullets might be slapping into your car…

Using just the rear vision mirror I ended up way off course, running over the witches hats simulating a line of parked cars against the gutter. Game Over. Reset. Start Over… using the wing mirrors I stayed straight, but was slow, too slow, according to Halton. But looking back over my shoulder and locking my hand onto the top of the wheel, I managed to stay straight even with the throttle mashed into the deep pile carpet.

From there, Halton runs me through a ‘brake and steer’ exercise designed to simulate avoiding an obstacle or even a gunman that’s jumped out from behind a parked car at the last minute. It’s simple enough to do, but it’s absolutely terrifying, because if you brake too late with too much speed on board you could understeer into a parked car, or building, or… and end up as a sitting duck. Worse still, you could turn too hard, be too soft on the brakes and roll the car. Catastrophe.

With this two-and-a-bit-million-dollars-worth of bunker needing to be sent off to the detailers, in the next hour, before being delivered to its new owner tomorrow, there’s just enough time for one more exercise.

And that is the high-speed brake test, which would theoretically then lead into the high-speed reverse. So I pin the throttle to the boards, the big girl picks up her skirt and hammers to 100km/h; I immediately get on the brakes with both feet. The armoured Range Rover’s run-flat EMT tyres grip into the road and the Rangie screeches to a halt. I slam it into reverse… gunman avoided. VIP safe. Phew. And there, sadly, endeth the lesson.

7 Days in Advance of Arrival Date = Full Refund3 Days in Advance = 50% Refund (Of the 50% Deposit or total amount paid to us)1-3 Days in Advance (No Refund)

*All Prices Shown are in USD.

About Diplomat Armored Rentals

Diplomat Armored Rentals is a Veteran Owned Business founded in 2012. We are the World’s premier provider of armored passenger vehicles for Rent with over 300 armored vehicles in our fleet. We provide armored passenger vehicles for long and short-term rentals.

Diplomat Armored Rentals is a Veteran Owned Business founded in 2012. We are the World’s premier provider of armored passenger vehicles for Rent with over 300 armored vehicles in our fleet. We provide armored passenger vehicles for long and short-term rentals.

Armored Car Hire Services in Costa Rica include an armed Security Driver $1750 USD per Day Daily Rate includes security services in San Jose, Escazu, Santa Ana, and Cartago. 150 KM Per Day and 12 hours of service with security driver.

Diplomat ArmoredRentals is the World’s Largest provider of armored vehicles for Rent with over 300 armored vehicles in our fleet.

Our clients include executives, Heads of State, celebrities, corporations, government agencies, and NGOs.

We have provided armored vehicles to the US Embassy in Libya, Chemical Weapons Inspectors from the Organization for the prohibition of Chemical weapons, Israeli Secret Service, Saudi Royal Family, Mclaren Formula 1 Racing Team, US Navy SEALs, World Bank and the US Secret Service.

We have armored vehicles available for rent in the US, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia

We have teamed up with the world’s premier armored vehicle rental and armored car hire companies in the world to create a comprehensive database of armored passenger vehicles available for rent around the world. We named the database WAVES.

Gulf Cartel Builds “Technical” from a Hummer and used it to directly confront Mexican Miitary.

Cartel “Technical” used in directconfront Mexican Miitary

Translation by “Leslie M”Tamaulipas – Snipers of the Scorpion Group of the Gulf Cartel arrived in an armored Hummer equipped with a turret from which they could shoot with assault rifles. It was actually fitted for

combat as if it were a tactical military vehicle. It was this truck that was literally a tank with which the members of the CDG confronted the military in Rio Bravo, Tamaulipas. The events took place on the afternoon of Wednesday, January 2, 2019.

The military managed to blow up the armored vehicle which the assassins took to the entrance of a house where two armed civilians carrying AK47 rifles were also killed.

The armored truck had signs that identify the members of the Gulf Cartel of Matamoros Scorpions. Just last Monday, Decemer 31, another group of hitmen traveled in another armored vehicle that had the same signs. According to the report, those were members of the same group of Matamoros.

Armored van captured in Reynosa during a confrontation with the military on December 31.

From 2010 to date, Tamaulipas is the state where the largest number of these armored vehicles have been confiscated, having been used in fights with authorities and rival groups. Many kinds of modified trucks with thick steel plates have been built in workshops by both the Gulf Cartel and its rivals the Zetas.

Narrative translation by Sol:

Sicarios of the Gulf Cartel Scorpion faction were traveling in an armored Hummer truck equipped with a turret from which they could shoot their assault rifles. It was arranged for combat as if it was a tactical military vehicle. It was in this truck that was literally a tank in which the members of the CDG confronted the military in Rio Bravo Tamaulipas.

The acts occurred on the afternoon of Wednesday, January 2, 2019. The military managed to blow up the armored vehicle with which the assassins attacked them at the height of headland Satellite. Where it ended up crashing at the entrance of a house. Two armed civilians carrying AK-47 rifles were killed. The truck had some logos that identified them as members of the Sccorpions of the Gulf Cartel of Matamoros. Just last Monday, December 31 another group of assassins were traveling in another armored truck that had the same logos.

According to the report, they were members of the same Matamoros faction who clashed with the military, since the truck had the same logo. From 2010 to date, Tamaulipas is the state where the largest number of these armored vehicles have been confiscated and used in clashes with authorities and rival groups. They have found all kinds of modified trucks with thick steel plates called Monsters. And they have been manufactured in workshops by both the Gulf Cartel and its rivals Los Zetas.

Like this:

UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) — The UN-marked armored vehicle which the head of a UN mission in Yemen was riding in was struck by gunfire on Thursday but all of the occupants are safe, said a UN spokesman.

“Gen. (Patrick) Cammaert, who chairs the RCC (Redeployment Coordination Committee), and his team had left a meeting of the government of Yemen RCC representatives (and) as they were leaving, one UN-marked armored vehicle sustained one round of small arms fire,” said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

Patrick Cammaert, head of the UN Mission to support the Hodeidah Agreement, was also appointed by the United Nations as the head of the RCC which includes representatives from both Yemeni rival forces. The commission was established to support the implementation of the agreement on the city of Hodeidah and ports of Hodeidah, Salif and Ras Issa as set out in the Stockholm Agreement.

“The team returned to base without further incident,” Dujarric told reporters at a regular briefing. “We do not have information as to the source of the fire.”

“Gen. Cammaert and all members of his secretariat team are safe,” the spokesman said. “He has reiterated his appeal for calm and a strengthening of the cease-fire by all sides in the wider interest of all people in Yemen.”

Dujarric refused to go into details about security provided for the retired Dutch general and his team, but said, “We don’t send people to these kind of places without taking security precautions.”

“Everybody is safe and we would hope that all the parties respect the cease-fire for the benefit of all Yemeni people,” he added.

Pushed on the type of vehicle the general was riding in, Dujarric said, “I think all of us can kind of imagine what sort of vehicle one would want to drive in as they are driving through Hodeidah.”

Hodeidah is the site of Yemen’s strategic major Red Sea port and has been fought over in the four-year-old Yemen civil war.

Members of the RCC are charged with negotiating the redeployment of their forces from within the city itself and the port — as well as from two minor ports — so that humanitarian aid shipments can be received and safely distributed to millions of Yemenis on the edge of starvation.

Another Yemen bargaining session got under way in Jordan on Wednesday to work out details of a prisoner exchange between the Houthi rebels and the government of Yemen.

7 Days in Advance of Arrival Date = Full Refund
3 Days in Advance = 50% Refund (Of the 50% Deposit or total amount paid to us)
1-3 Days in Advance (No Refund) *All Prices Shown are in USD. Contact Us Today to Reserve this vehicle: 1-888-480-0454. Diplomat Vehicle Number: DAR335

Diplomat Armored Rentals is a Veteran Owned Business founded in 2012. We are the World’s premier provider of armored passenger vehicles for Rent with over 300 armored vehicles in our fleet. We provide armored passenger vehicles for long and short-term rentals.

Client Driven Rentals are NOT permitted in this vehicle. (Client Driven Rentals are only available for Secret Service or US Department of State Diplomatic Security Service.)

A trained and certified armored vehicle driver is included in the daily rate. All Drivers and Executive Protection Agents are Armored Vehicle trained by either I.P.I. in Virginia or V.D.I. in New Jersey.

They are fully credentialed Executive Protection Agents by the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services.

7 Days in Advance of Arrival Date = Full Refund
3 Days in Advance = 50% Refund (Of the 50% Deposit or total amount paid to us)
1-3 Days in Advance (No Refund) *All Prices Shown are in USD.
Contact Us Today to Reserve this vehicle: 1-888-480-0454.
Diplomat Vehicle Number: DARDC382